A draft is a process used in some countries and sports to allocate certain players to teams. In a draft, teams take turns selecting from a pool of eligible players. When a team selects a player, the team receives exclusive rights to sign that player to a contract, and no other team in the league may sign the player.

The best-known type of draft is the entry draft, which is used to allocate players who have recently become eligible to play in a league. Depending on the sport, the players may come from college, high school or junior teams or teams in other countries.

An entry draft is intended to prevent expensive bidding wars for young talent and to ensure that no one team can sign contracts with all of the best young players and make the league uncompetitive. To encourage parity, teams that do poorly in the previous season usually get to choose first in the postseason draft, sometimes with a "lottery" factor to discourage teams from deliberately losing.

Other types of drafts include the expansion draft, in which a new team selects players from other teams in the league; and the dispersal draft, in which a league's surviving teams select players from the roster of a newly defunct franchise.

Drafts are usually permitted under anti-trust or restraint of trade laws because they are included in collective bargaining agreements between leagues and labor unions representing players. These agreements generally stipulate that after a certain number of seasons, a player whose contract has expired becomes a free agent and can sign with any team. They also require minimum and sometimes maximum salaries for newly drafted players.

Drafts are uncommon outside the U.S. and Canada, and most professional football clubs obtain young players through transfers from smaller clubs or by developing youth players through their own academies. The youth system is operated directly by the teams themselves, who develop their players from childhood. Parity in these leagues is instead maintained through promotion and relegation, which automatically expels the weakest teams from a league in exchange for the strongest teams in the next lower league. The result is a drastically different endgame for poor teams: a North American sports team may see the opportunity to get better through the draft after a poor season, but a European club will instead be relegated down to a league with less money and prestige, potentially exacerbating the problems.

Australia

AFL draft

In Australian rules football's premier competition, a draft was introduced in 1986 (when the competition was then known as the VFL). This was in response to the increasing transfer fees and player salaries at the time, which in combination with declining attendances, threatened to derail the league. It was also a result of the failure of country zoning, introduced in the late 1960s, which had led to a systematic inequality whereby the clubs with the best zones, like Carlton and Hawthorn, could dominate over clubs with poorer zones like Melbourne.

In the AFL Draft, clubs receive picks based on the position in which they finish on the ladder. Therefore, the teams that finish at the bottom of the AFL ladder will get the first draft picks. Also, any team that finishes in a low ladder position for consecutive seasons will receive priority picks.

The AFL's National Draft is held in November, with a pre-season draft and a rookie draft held in December.

NSWRL draft

The 1991 NSWRL season featured the introduction of rugby league football's first draft system. The draft allowed teams to recruit players on a roster system based on where the club finished the previous year. It ran in reverse order with the wooden spooners getting first choice and the premiers last. The draft lasted just the one season before being defeated in the courts by players and coaches opposed to its limitations.[3]

Asia

PBA draft

The Philippine Basketball Association draft is an annual event in the PBA calendar in which teams can acquire new players outside the league which are not free agents. Only natural-born Filipinos are eligible to be drafted. The draft began in 1985; prior to that teams directly hired rookies.

IPL auction

ISL draft

Indian Super League is responsible for holding drafts prior to the commencement of each season. Teams can buy foreign players with international experience while they still can purchase Indian players with little or no experience.

PSL draft

The Pakistan Super League uses a draft system for player recruitment before the start of every season to fairly distribute the league's new players. Teams are allotted slots in every round of the draft and slots can be exchanged with other teams.

North America

NFL draft

Draft order in the NFL is determined in a reverse-record order (the previous season's worst team picking first, the Super Bowl winner picking last). There are 7 rounds of the draft, so each team can have 7 selections, plus whatever compensatory selections a team receives as a result of free agency (up to 32 compensatory selections are given each year). Teams are allowed to trade draft picks (now including compensation picks) among each other in exchange for other draft picks or in exchange for players.

Because the NFL requires that players be three years removed from high school, and the lack of an effective junior development system outside the college and university programs, players are chosen almost exclusively from National Collegiate Athletic Associationcollege football programs.

NBA draft

The NBA Draft, held in a New York theater each summer, is only two rounds long. Instead of automatically granting the top pick to the worst team from the year before, the NBA holds a draft lottery to determine who chooses first. The top three picks are allocated by chance among the 14 teams that did not make the playoffs the year before. This discourages a team from losing on purpose to get a better draft pick, but also causes other controversies such as allegations that the lottery is rigged.

NBA teams choose players from the NCAA and from teams overseas. It was formerly common for players to be chosen directly from high school, but in 2006, the NBA required that players wait a year after high school before playing in the NBA. Almost all top U.S. players thus play at least one year in college.

NHL draft

The NHL operates a seven-round off-season draft. Like the NBA, the NHL uses a lottery system to determine which team gets the top pick. All 15 teams that failed to qualify for the playoffs take part in the weighted lottery with the winner moving up to select first overall. Any North American player aged 18-20, and any overseas player aged 18-21 is eligible to be selected. Players are generally chosen from junior hockey teams, high schools, the NCAA and overseas clubs.

The NHL rotates the draft's location among cities with teams in the league. Like baseball, players drafted in the entry draft usually have to wait a few years in development, either in junior hockey or the minor leagues, before cracking an NHL roster; usually, only one or two draft picks, generally those that are widely predicted to be blue-chip superstars, jump directly from the draft to the NHL (e.g. Sidney Crosby or Jaromír Jágr).

The league has incrementally expanded the draft lottery process over the course of the early 2010s to discourage "tanking"--the act of deliberately losing to get a better draft pick. Historically, the league only subjected the first overall pick to the draft lottery among the five worst teams in the league, meaning that if a draft had more than one marquee prospect (a generally rare occurrence), it would still be a viable strategy to tank, as a second overall pick was still guaranteed. This was made evident in the 2015 NHL Entry Draft, where marquee prospects Connor McDavid and Jack Eichel were both seen as NHL-ready and likely to be stars; much speculation surrounded the struggling Buffalo Sabres, who allegedly tanked to secure the rights to at least the second overall pick (a charge that, although the Sabres' fans openly encouraged it, the team officially denied). Beginning with the 2016 NHL Entry Draft, the top three overall picks are subject to lottery among all fourteen teams that did not make the playoffs, meaning the last-place team will only be assured of the fourth overall pick, at which point virtually any marquee prospect will have already been selected.

The three major junior leagues that make up the Canadian Hockey League also hold drafts of teenage players in their territories.

MLB draft

Major League Baseball holds two drafts each year. In June, the First-Year Player Draft, MLB's entry draft, takes place. Only players from Canada, the U.S. or a U.S. territory may be drafted; players from elsewhere are free agents and can be signed by any team. Draftees are high-school graduates who have opted not to go to college; college baseball players at four-year institutions who have played three years or turned 21; or junior college baseball players. The draft lasts up to 40 rounds. The MLB Draft generally receives less attention than the drafts in other American sports, since drafted players usually spend several years in the minor leagues before they crack the Major League team's roster. Also, unlike the MLS, NFL, NBA and the NHL Drafts, the MLB Draft takes place during the season instead of in the offseason.

In December, MLB holds the much shorter Rule 5 draft. If an organization keeps a player in the minor leagues for a certain number of years, other teams can draft him in the Rule 5 draft. The drafting team must keep the player on its major-league roster; it cannot put the player in its own minor-league system.

MLS draft

Major League Soccer has two types of draft that occur each year, plus a third that is held intermittently when the league adds one or more teams. The two annual drafts are the MLS SuperDraft and MLS Supplemental Draft, with the MLS Expansion Draft held in the offseason immediately before the league expands.

WNBA draft

Every spring, the WNBA Draft is held at league headquarters in Secaucus, New Jersey. From 2005 to 2008, the Draft was held in the city that hosted the NCAA Women's Final Four. The draft is currently three rounds long with each of the 12 teams in the league (trades aside) getting three picks each. Draft order for teams that made the playoffs the previous year are based on team records. The team with the highest previous record will pick last. Since eight teams qualify for playoffs, the bottom eight picks are determined by this method. For the remaining top four picks, a selection process similar to the NBA Draft Lottery is conducted for the four teams that did not qualify for the playoffs.

CFL draft

The Canadian Football League holds its annual player draft before the start of the season, either in the last days of April or the start of May. It was formerly held as part of the annual league meetings in Hamilton, but is now typically held by conference call with the first two rounds being broadcast live on TSN. Since 2013, the draft has consisted of seven rounds, with teams drafting in inverse order of their records in the previous season. As with the NFL Draft, trading of picks is very common, meaning that a team will not necessarily have seven picks in a given draft.

International players, which can compose up to half of a CFL team's roster, are not subject to a draft and enter the league as free agents. This includes almost all of the league's quarterbacks.

Disaster draft

Major professional sports leagues (including the KHL, MLB, NBA, NFL, and NHL) have special contingency plans for rebuilding a team should an accident or other disaster kill or disable many players.[5]

Other terminology

Draft bust

A draft bust occurs when a highly touted or highly selected draftee does not meet expectations. This can be for a variety of reasons, but the most often noted are injury or inability to perform at a professional level. A player is also regarded as a larger bust if more successful players are drafted after him or her. An example of a bust is in the 1998 NFL Draft. The San Diego Chargers selected promising quarterback Ryan Leaf with the second overall pick, after Peyton Manning. However, Leaf only managed to play two years with the Chargers and started only 18 games (and winning only 4 games) for them before being released.[6][7][8] In contrast, Manning would have a standout career in which he would set a number of passing records, lead two Super Bowl-winning teams and become one of the most recognizable players in the NFL. Tony Mandarich, another frequently cited draft bust, is an example of a player whose status as a bust is amplified by their placement in the draft. Mandarich was selected second overall in the 1989 NFL Draft by the Green Bay Packers, after future Pro Football Hall of Fame inductee Troy Aikman and ahead of future Hall of Famers Barry Sanders, Derrick Thomas and Deion Sanders, as well as seven future Pro Bowlers. The Packers would cut Mandarich after three seasons, and he would retire in 1998 after three unremarkable seasons with the Indianapolis Colts. Other frequently cited examples include JaMarcus Russell, Robert Griffin III, Trent Richardson and Akili Smith.[9][10][11][12]

Draft steal

Conversely, a lowly-drafted player going on to have a stellar career is a draft steal. Mike Piazza, who went on to become one of the best catchers of the 1990s, a 12-time MLBAll-Star selection and a Hall of Famer, was chosen in the 62nd round (1390th overall)[16] of the 1988 draft, and was selected only as a favor to Tommy Lasorda. (To further put the pick in historic perspective, the MLB draft now has 40 rounds.)

In the NFL, one of the more notable examples is Tom Brady, who was drafted in the sixth round, and went on to win five Super Bowls and achieved more success than the players drafted before him. Similarly, two-time Super Bowl champion Roger Staubach was a tenth round pick in both the AFL and NFL drafts largely due to having a four-year commitment to serve in the U.S. Navy; Pro Football Hall of Fame Quarterback Brett Favre was a second round pick and fellow Hall of Famers Joe Montana, Aeneas Williams and Dan Fouts were all third round picks, with Montana slipping due to an average showing at the combine; Drew Brees, MVP of Super Bowl XLIV, dropped to the second round after being generally dismissed by scouts due to a mediocre performance at the combine and his height[17] but went on to break or set NFL records for passing yards and touchdown passes; Johnny Unitas, who is considered one of the greatest quarterbacks in the history of the game,[18] was drafted in the ninth round; and Bart Starr, two-time Super Bowl MVP, was the 200th overall pick.

Other

Mr. Irrelevant is a title given to the last player selected in each year's NFL Draft. The phrase pokes fun at the typically poor chances such a player has of ultimately making an impact in the league, although several went on to productive NFL careers.

From the author of the cult favorite Pro Cycling on $10 a Day and Ask a Pro, the story of one manâs quest to realize his childhood dream, and what happened when he actually did it.Â Like countless other kids, Phil Gaimon grew up dreaming of being a professional athlete. But unlike countless other kids, he actually pulled it off. After years of amateur races, hard training, living out of a suitcase, and never taking ânoâ for an answer, he finally achieved his goal and signed a contract to race professionally on one of the best teams in the world.

Now, Gaimon pulls back the curtain on the WorldTour, cyclingâs highest level. He takes readers along for his seasons in Europe, covering everything from rabid, water-bottle-stealing Belgian fans, to contract renewals, to riding in poisonous smog, to making friends in a sport plagued by doping.Â Draft Animals reveals a story as much about bike racing as it is about the never-ending ladder of achieving goals, failure, and finding happiness if you land somewhere in-between.

It's been almost a year since I've seen her, the only woman that's ever gotten under my skin, and made me wish I was a better man. More than just the washed up hockey player, turned sports journalist whose body is almost as scarred as his soul.

Layla Harper made me hope again. But life has a warped sense of humor, and I wasn't the only Bennett brother that fell for the girl with the caramel colored eyes.

The night I saw Travis with her I knew I'd lost, even before I had the chance to fight. Because one thing I never compete with my brother over is women. Even if the woman stole my breath, and my heart with one single kiss.

And damn, what a kiss it had been.

Now, she's pregnant with my brother's baby. A baby he wants nothing to do with. And he's asked me to clean up his mess.

What he doesn't know is that I'm in love with her, and I have no intention of offering her the deal he's laid out. I have a deal of my own. One that will finally make her mine.

Prepare for the new season with rankings and insight on more than 350 players!

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RotoRadarâs Fantasy Football Draft Strategy Guide focuses on draft strategies that make use of game theory and analytics and applies them to fantasy football. An emphasis is made on finding value throughout the draft process.

This book is a complete guide that includes strategies, player profiles, informative graphics, examples and useful links to dominate your fantasy football drafts! A good strategy is designed to get you the best players at the most advantageous draft position. Learning how to optimize conditions that put you into position to acquire players that offer the most value is the key to successful player acquisition, and those principles are covered extensively in this book. Value-Based Drafting and using Wisdom of the Crowd to identify and target high-upside players is heavily investigated. So is using Average Draft Position to gain an advantage over your competitors to obtain the players you want.RotoRadarâs Fantasy Football Draft Strategy Guide is for fantasy football players who want to step up their game to the next level by using statistical analysis and market-driven principles to build winning, title-contending teams.

Discussion of metrics and analytics and their applicability to fantasy football

How fantasy football is similar to the stock market and why market principles make for good strategies

The importance of obtaining value, with an emphasis on identifying undervalued players and sleeper players

A comprehensive examination of strategies that include: Value-Based Drafting, drafting based on Average Draft Position, using tiers to separate players of similar value, and the Zero-RB and Zero-QB strategies

Investigating the importance of consistency in fantasy football and how to quantify it

A step-by-step explanation of a successful draft process

The importance of identifying targets and whom to target broken down by position

How to prepare informative cheat sheets that will aid tremendously in the player acquisition process

The importance of mock drafts and how to properly gain information from them

Links and descriptions to key fantasy football tools available online

RotoRadarâs Fantasy Football Draft Strategy Guide is a one-stop guide that, when read from beginning to end, gives fantasy football players of all levels new insights into what it takes to field a winning fantasy football team.

Predictably Irrational meets Moneyball in ESPN veteran writer and statistical analyst Keith Lawâs iconoclastic look at the numbers game of baseball, proving why some of the most trusted stats are surprisingly wrong, explaining what numbers actually work, and exploring what the rise of Big Data means for the future of the sport.

For decades, statistics such as batting average, saves recorded, and pitching won-lost records have been used to measure individual playersâ and teamsâ potential and success. But in the past fifteen years, a revolutionary new standard of measurementâsabermetricsâhas been embraced by front offices in Major League Baseball and among fantasy baseball enthusiasts. But while sabermetrics is recognized as being smarter and more accurate, traditionalists, including journalists, fans, and managers, stubbornly believe that the "old" wayâa combination of outdated numbers and "gut" instinctâis still the best way. Baseball, they argue, should be run by people, not by numbers.

In this informative and provocative book, the renowned ESPN analyst and senior baseball writer demolishes a centuryâs worth of accepted wisdom, making the definitive case against the long-established view. Armed with concrete examples from different eras of baseball history, logic, a little math, and lively commentary, he shows how the allegiance to these numbersâdating back to the beginning of the professional gameâis firmly rooted not in accuracy or success, but in baseballâs irrational adherence to tradition.

While Law gores sacred cows, from clutch performers to RBIs to the infamous save rule, he also demystifies sabermetrics, explaining what these "new" numbers really are and why theyâre vital. He also considers the gameâs future, examining how teams are using Dataâfrom PhDs to sophisticated statistical databasesâto build future rosters; changes that will transform baseball and all of professional sports.

The 2012-13 fantasy basketball season is quickly approaching and thus now is the time to prepare for the alwasy important player draft. In the Fantasy Sports Boss 2013 Fantasy Basketball Draft guide, you have everything you need to dominate your draft and win your league title. From position rankings along with summaries of the outlook of each key player, the guide covers it all. Also included are 2013 sleepers, busts, impact rookies, pressing questions, and much more. One of the only fantasy basketball publications out there. ***This guide is in book form and is not a magazine.****

In Scorecasting, University of Chicago behavioral economist Tobias Moskowitz teams up with veteran Sports Illustrated writer L. Jon Wertheim to overturn some of the most cherished truisms of sports, and reveal the hidden forces that shape how basketball, baseball, football, and hockey games are played, won and lost.

Drawing from Moskowitz's original research, as well as studies from fellow economists such as bestselling author Richard Thaler, the authors look at: the influence home-field advantage has on the outcomes of games in all sports and why it exists; the surprising truth about the universally accepted axiom that defense wins championships;Â the subtle biases that umpires exhibit in calling balls and strikes in key situations; the unintended consequences of referees' tendencies in every sport to "swallow the whistle," and more.

Among the insights that Scorecasting reveals:

Why Tiger Woods is prone to the same mistake in high-pressure putting situations that you and I are

Why professional teams routinely overvalue draft picks

The myth of momentumÂ or the "hot hand" in sports, and why so many fans, coaches, and broadcasters fervently subscribe to it

Why NFL coaches rarely go for a first down on fourth-down situations--even when their reluctance to do so reduces their chances of winning.

In an engaging narrative that takes us from the putting greens of Augusta to the grid iron of a small parochial high school in Arkansas, Scorecasting will forever change how you view the game, whatever your favorite sport might be.

An explosive look at the NFL Draft from the inside out that exposes the multilayered feeding frenzy that swarms around America's top college players.

The Draft follows a handful of NFL hopefuls through the ups and downs of the 2004 college football season and the predraft process, culminating with the 2005 draft. Among the prospects are Virginia defensive end Chris Canty, who overcomes a devastating early-season knee injury to reestablish himself as a top draft hopeful, only to suffer a detached retina in a nightclub skirmish; and Fred Gibson, a talented but rail-thin Georgia wide receiver who struggles to put on the weight needed to go over the middle in the NFL.It's a complex environment, with college coaches attempting to protect their "student-athletes" from exploitation (while fully aware that they can only remain competitive if they attract NFL-caliber players to their schools), along with sports agents and NFL scouts trying to stay a step ahead of their competition. These parties provide a multi-angled view of the world of emerging NFL talent. The reader follows the season through the eyes of a host of power players and scouts, from veteran agent Pat Dye Jr. to Jerry Maguire clone Jack Scharf, to the coaching divisions of Florida State University and the University of Virginia---headed by longtime Bill Parcells disciple Al Groh. Also central to the narrative are the Atlanta Falcons and executives Rich McKay and Tim Ruskell (now with Seattle), who use a character-based evaluation system to set their draft board. These parallel stories weave together, culminating in draft weekend, to create a gripping and fascinating look at a world few see from the inside.

This book will show writers how to develop their ideas into a finished novel by working through it in 7 stages, while learning how to mapping out their story's progress and structure so they can evaluate and improve their work. It teaches writers to visualize their story's progress with a story map that helps them see all the different components of their story, where these components are going, and, perhaps most importantly, what's missing.

The book simplifies Aristotle's elements of good writing (a.k.a. that each story should have a beginning, a middle and an end) into easily applicable concepts that will help writers improve their craft. The author helps readers strengthen their work by teaching them how to focus on one aspect of their story at a time, including forming stories and developing ideas, building strong structures, creating vibrant characters, and structuring scenes and transitions. Thought-provoking questions help writers more objectively assess their story's strengths and weaknesses so they may write the story they want to tell.

In sports there are lies, damned lies, and statistics. Joe DiMaggioâs fifty-six-game hitting streak was magical. The three-point shot is an essential part of NBA basketball. Babe Ruth shouldnât have attempted to steal second base in the ninth inning of the 1926 World Series. Scientist and researcher Sheldon Hirsch has taken a decidedly unorthodox approach to sports history. He looks at myths, legends, conventional wisdom, shibboleths, and firm convictions of all kinds that sports lovers hold to be true, and demonstrates how analysis of facts and figures disproves what traditionâand sportswritersâwould have us believe. Divided into three parts, on baseball, basketball, and football, Hot Hands, Draft Hype, and DiMaggioâs Streak contains enough clear-sightedness and shocking conclusions to delight any sports lover.